


For Love (is a celestial harmony of likely hearts)

by Enby_Tiefling



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, Found Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 20:53:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19236886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enby_Tiefling/pseuds/Enby_Tiefling
Summary: Like mountains, like rivers carving stone.





	For Love (is a celestial harmony of likely hearts)

Grog loves slow and steady, like rivers and mountains. He never really thinks too hard about it, because he tries not to think too hard about anything. It's not his strong suit - strength is his strong suit. But he feels it.

He feels river and mountain love in quiet moments around campfires and food-laden tables, between pulses of rage in battle, in the tense seconds between breaths when someone falls and fails to rise. And he especially feels it around Pike.

Pike is his best buddy. Pike reaches his knee at full height and slaps at his thigh when she laughs or tells him off for stuff he doesn't always know is wrong. Pike burns the way it burned the first time he looked at a lightning strike, like reverence and awe and fear in the best way. Pike is the one person Grog will ever say could beat him in a fight, because she shines like a flaming beacon and her touch is gentle and her voice is the best way to pull him out of battle madness. Of course she could beat him. Pike Trickfoot could _destroy_ him, and maybe he'd even say thank you.

In the herd, love was hard-won and easily lost, more favour and grudging respect than the easy companionship Grog has found with Vox Machina. In the herd, love was a punch in the arm and an extra haunch at meal time, after a battle well fought and an enemy slain. In the herd, love could be lost in an instant, with a sloppy blow or a joke aimed at the wrong person or worse, so much worse, any sign of weakness.

Grog had been a runt, but he was strong, and in his battle madness he rivalled the herd's greatest warriors. He told excellent rude jokes and in a fight, at least, he was smart, quick on his runt feet. Grog had been a runt, but he fought well, and he fought often. He fought for admiration, for respect. For love, as much as anyone in the herd could love him.

_Love_ was the word that nearly killed him, when his hunting party came across a tiny, squishy thing on a road through the woods. Love was the word the little thing cried out, _please, Sarenrae, please, for the love of the gods -_

Grog thought he knew love. He thought he knew love in shoulder punches and second helpings and Kevdak's slow, grim nods. But this tiny thing, this gnome with no weapon or armour, nothing but a holy symbol and a locket with a little girl's portrait inside, called out 'love' like it was something powerful, something benevolent, something _kind_. And Grog, who told excellent dirty jokes and was smart in battle but not much else, thought maybe that kind of love sounded better.

Wilhand taught him love as a word, guiding him broken and bloodied to the outskirts of a town and making him a pile of soft things under the shade of an oak tree in the backyard. But Pike, even littler than her uncle, sweet-voiced and firm-handed, Pike taught him love as a way of life.

Grog learned love through mercy, sparing Wilhand that day. He learned love through kindness, as Pike drew upon all her knowledge and skill and faith to heal him before even learning his name. He learned love through protection, when the isolated Trickfoot homestead on the edge of town was set upon by bandits and Grog took up his great axe and fought for his new home, for the new life he had been granted. He learned love through faith, watching Pike pray to Sarenrae and watching the goddess answer, flooding Pike with golden light that Grog didn't think she really needed, being radiant enough on her own.

For a long time, a long long time, this was enough. He would adventure two, three days outside of town to kill monsters, hunted wild boar and the occasional direwolf pack, helped Pike choose her own weapon when the time came to learn to fight for her goddess, carried heavy stuff for tiny old Wilhand, and life was good. Simple, rather boring at times, but good. His adventures took him further and further out of town as the years passed, but he always came back.

(Pike once told him that the world spins around the sun like a top on a string, and while he doesn't quite believe it because he never feels dizzy, he thinks maybe he is a little bit like that.)

Grog loves Pike, and he loves Wilhand the same but different. And he loves fighting and fucking and ale. And then he meets more people, people like him who fight and drink and laugh as the world tries to take them down, and Grog's slow-moving river-and-mountain love begins to grow.


End file.
